Suzie rolled her eyes. "Me, too. And worse. Laura was a whole year ahead of me in science."
"Sucked, didn't it?" There was sadness behind his smile. Sadness she'd bet never left him.
"Anyway, Nate and I … " She hesitated, not knowing how to say it. But she didn't need to.
Harrison nodded. "I can see that. He's a lucky guy."
"Only he's not. Because I couldn't stay with him, not when it would be like me and Laura all over again. My life's a mess. I had to give up my consultancy a few years ago, and I got into debt. I've been working part time for a friend since then, but I can barely manage to buy groceries, let alone pay my debt back. And Nate's a millionaire, with everything sorted out. I feel like a disappointment. Second best. And I can't stand it." Woah, where was this coming from? But it felt good blurting everything out to Harrison. At least he had a chance of understanding.
He leaned forward, his expression serious. "Did Nate tell you I don't have a job? That I haven't had one for years?" His gaze flicked to the photos. "Ever since Yasmina died."
"He told me you were writing a book."
"I always wanted to. Maybe one day I will." Harrison shrugged. "Anyway, I know how you're feeling, but Nate's done everything he can to help me. I keep telling myself that it's not his fault he's got things worked out." He managed a ghost of a smile. "Guy can't help being a genius."
"But it's not about him. It's about me, and how I can't seem to do anything right. If I could only feel good about myself, maybe there'd be room for Mr. Invincible in my life." She leaned forward. "In fact, that's why I'm here. I have a question to ask. Nate said he owed his success to you. That you'd inspired him in some way. Do you know what he meant?"
Harrison frowned. He didn't say anything for a moment and Suzie's heart sank. Maybe he had no idea what she was talking about. Besides, if Harrison knew some great secret for success, why was he hiding alone in this house?
"I think I know what he was talking about," said Harrison. "I can tell you, but I'll have to relate the whole story. You've got time to hear it?"
Time was the last thing Suzie had, but she nodded. "Please tell me."
20
Harrison got up and found a pen on a side table. "If I'm going to tell you the story, I need something in my hands I can pretend is a cigarette." Pen in hand, he settled back in his chair.
"You smoke?" she asked.
He shrugged. "Full of bad habits, but I try not to light up in the house." He flicked the pen over his knuckle and caught it in his palm. "So, you already know we went to live with dear old Dad. He has a huge house in Florida with a yacht parked right outside. Plenty of money, but when it comes to compassion or generosity, he's one of the poorest people I know."
"Is that how Nate knows so much about boats?"
"He loves sailing. I've never been as fond of it." Harrison turned the pen over and over in one hand. "Anyway, I had one more year of school to complete and in my English class, I sat behind a girl called Nancy."
Suzie smiled at the faraway look in his eyes. "You had a crush on her?"
He grinned back. "You should have seen her. She looked deceptively sweet, like Rapunzel, with a thick braid hanging to her waist. But she cursed like a sailor. Every second word was a rude one. She used to sneak out of school to smoke cigarettes, and sometimes she'd draw dirty pictures on her arms in marker, and let her sleeves ride up just enough for one of our teachers to get a glimpse."
"She sounds like someone I'd like. Did she have a crush on you too?"
"Not even close." He laughed. "You remember I had all those piercings back then? I thought for sure I'd be her type, but she was dating this Neanderthal called BJ. I think it stood for Blustering Jackass. His mouth was bigger than his brain."
He'd just described every guy Suzie had ever dated. "So what did you do?" she asked.
"Nancy worked in a burger joint after school. The place closed at ten, then she'd walk home. She didn't live far from the place, only a few blocks. Took her around ten minutes. But it was dark by then, and I hated the thought of her walking on her own. You never know who's around, do you? So I started turning up there each night to walk home with her."
"That was a nice thing to do."
"Yeah? BJ didn't think so. And he wasn't shy in telling me to back off." Harrison clenched the fist that wasn't holding the pen and gave her a meaningful look.
"He beat you up?"
"More than once. But at least he started turning up to walk her home himself, so there was that."
It sounded like Harrison had been more worried about Nancy's safety than his own. Could he be any sweeter?
"So what happened?" she asked.
The pen stilled in his hand and he studied it with a little frown, as though trying to work out why. "Thing is, when I fell for someone, I fell hard. I threw my heart over the cliff without looking, then jumped after it."
She couldn't help but smile at the image he'd painted, but something tightened inside her chest. Nate's heart seemed closely guarded, and she couldn't imagine him throwing it off any cliffs.
"I kept turning up each night to make sure BJ was there to walk her home," he said. "And he kept adding pretty new specimens to my bruise collection."
"Did Nancy appreciate what you were doing, at least?"
His mouth twisted ruefully. "The opposite. She thought I was stalking her. Threatened to call the police if I didn't leave her alone."
"And you still kept turning up, even though she told you not to?"
"Yeah, well. It sounds crazy. But BJ never walked her until I started going there. If I stopped, he'd probably stop too. And what if neither of us showed, and something bad happened to her?"
Suzie frowned, wondering how she'd react if a man did something like that. "What happened?"
"A few months later, she split with BJ."
"Ah. So there was a happy ending. She realized you were a knight in shining armor who only had her best interests at heart?"
He screwed his face up. "I wish. Actually, she started dating someone else. The best thing that happened was her new boyfriend wasn't as big as BJ."
"You kept walking her home against her will? For how long?"
"That was our last year of school. After we graduated, she started a beauty therapy course and kept working at the burger joint in the evenings. She had a couple more boyfriends, but yeah, eventually she got used to me showing up every night. Even started talking to me during the walk home. Asking about my day." He laughed and spun the pen across his knuckles. "She told me she'd decided that as stalkers went, I wasn't so bad."
"Let me get this straight. Are you telling me this went on for longer than weeks or months?"
"After two and a half years, she quit the burger joint."
Suzie shook her head in disbelief. "You walked her home every night for two and a half years?"
"Yeah, but here's the part of it that used to fascinate Nate. Every day I used to ask myself if I was doing the right thing. Especially when she got a new boyfriend who'd kick my ass. Or when she did what she'd threatened to do and called the police."
She opened her mouth to ask how he'd explained himself to the police, then shut it again. Best not to interrupt his flow of words when he was getting to the part she most wanted to know.
"You know what kept me going? It was one simple thing."
She leaned forward. This was the secret that had helped Nate make his millions.
"I had two options. First one was to stop walking her home. Okay, so I was in love with her, but I thought, given time, I could get over that. And if I didn't have to go to the burger joint every night, my nights would be free to do other things. In other words, I knew exactly what the rewards of stopping would be. I could picture them. And I was tempted every single night."
"But you didn't do it."
He shook his head. "No. Because option two was to keep going. And with that option, I had no idea what might happen."
She frowned. "I don't get it. What if nothing good happened? What if you got arrested or beaten up again?"
"Exactly." He grinned at her puzzled look. "Option two had an unknown outcome, so it was always the better choice. Every night I turned up at the burger joint, there was a chance Nancy might finally speak to me. Maybe even fall in love with me. Every night I got to draw another card from the deck. Maybe I'd draw an Ace and maybe the Joker. But if I stayed home, I'd never get to play."
Suzie sat back. Could it really be that simple? She wasn't sure whether to feel cheated or exhilarated. "That's what kept you going all that time?"